Jewish teachers from around the country say they were belittled by their fellow educators during the National Education Association’s convention in Portland earlier this month.
They described being “vocally mocked, harassed and threatened in ways that dishonor our union,” in an open letter to NEA President Becky Pringle, who heads the 3 million-member union, the country’s largest.
“Those experiences were not abstract or historical; they were immediate, painful and have caused lasting harm,” members of the union’s Jewish caucus wrote.
Among their allegations:
That Jewish teachers were physically surrounded by other delegates and interrogated about their support for the Israeli government.
That when a Jewish teacher from Colorado spoke out about the 82-year-old Boulder woman who was killed after a firebombing attack on marchers who had gathered to support Israeli hostages, she was met with laughter and clapping from the audience.
That the executive chair of the Jewish Affairs Caucus was not granted the right to address the delegates to mark the 50th anniversary of the caucus.
At the same gathering, held in Portland from July 3-6, delegates to the convention voted for the union to no longer distribute, cite or promote educational material from the Anti-Defamation League, a longstanding Jewish advocacy group. Supporters of the move argued that the organization unfairly and consistently conflates antisemitism with criticism of the Israeli government’s actions.
The recommendation to sever ties with the group now moves to the union’s executive committee for consideration. It has already drawn significant pushback from Jewish organizations, nearly 400 of which have signed a letter calling on the union to reject the plan and instead continue to support Holocaust educational and anti-bias materials published by the Anti-Defamation League.
In a statement, Pringle said that she and others from her organization will meet with Jewish leaders, civil rights leaders, academics and politicians, before making any decision about severing ties with the group.
She said she’d met earlier this week with Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, to “clarify NEA’s process and restate our commitment to combating the rise of antisemitism in our society. … We have increased that work over the last several years, given the clear rise of antisemitism.”
Pringle has not directly addressed the concerns raised by Jewish teachers in the open letter. But in a separate statement released by the NEA, she said she saw “a critical need for us, as educators, to model the type of respectful dialogue and discourse we want to see in the world, in our classrooms, and on our campuses. We will not shy away from difficult or complex issues that affect our members, our students, or our schools, nor will we ever tolerate antisemitism, anti-Palestinian bigotry, or hateful rhetoric or behavior.”
During the convention in Portland, NEA union members also passed a resolution to recognize Jewish American Heritage Month and hosted a panel about how to combat antisemitism.
The current Israeli-Hamas conflict began on Oct. 7, 2023 with the murder of about 1,500 Israelis and the abduction of 250 more by Hamas, the militant group which governs the Gaza Strip and has been designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. government. The ongoing Israeli counterattack has so far left about 40,000 Palestinians dead, and thousands more displaced from their homes, with no clear end in sight.
In the Portland area, some leaders and members of the teachers unions for both Portland Public Schools and the Beaverton School District have been among the most vocal and prominent critics of the Israeli government’s response to Hamas, and have pushed for curriculum materials about modern Palestinian history to be integrated into classrooms.
But Jewish organizations and some Jewish teachers have countered that the curriculum materials promoted by the local unions diminish or ignore years of Jewish ties to Israel, and create an atmosphere of antisemitism for Jewish students and educators.
A coalition of Jewish members of the Portland Association of Teachers say they plan to meet this summer to discuss next steps, with some floating the idea of deactivating from their union — meaning that they will no longer pay dues. Others say they would prefer to get even more involved in union governance to be able to have more say in decision making.
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